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Frozen
Box of Frozen Aquastar Crab & Shrimp Seafood Feast
Aquastar Crab & Shrimp Seafood Feast Cooked

We saw this box of crab & shrimp seafood at Fry's (Kroger) and thought it sounded good so we tried some.

The seafood feast comes in a covered aluminum tray, and the cooking directions show that you can cook it in the oven or on the grill from frozen, but the grill is the preferred method, which is what we went with, and it was pretty easy.

While cooking the seafood was fairly easy, eating it was a bit labor intensive since you had to shell both the crab legs and shrimp. Both the crab and shrimp were fine, but I would have preferred more. 2.21 lb of seafood sounds like a lot, but it cooks down to a smaller volume and some of that is the crab leg shells, so it wasn't very much of a feast.

However, it did all taste pretty good with the broth. It was salty, but not excessively so. The broth had a nice, garlic and butter taste. There were 5 discs of corn, which were all nice and super sweet. The sausage tasted good, like a bratwurst. The potatoes were good red potatoes, but they were mushy, which is to be expected for being in a broth. The broth also turned into a sort of slurry with potato starch. There was some red and green pepper bits, but they were very tiny. The mussels also tasted good, but there were some broken pieces of mussel shell lurking underneath some of the other foods.

As an overall meal, it could have used more of everything: more seafood, more sausage, more corn, and more/bigger peppers. It also would have been nice if the shrimp and crab were pre-shelled and if there weren't as many broken mussel shell pieces. I probably would have even preferred artificial crab to having to shell the crab legs. And while I shared the seafood feast with my boyfriend, I probably could have eaten the entire thing by myself.

Overall Rating:
OK
Food: Aquastar Crab & Shrimp Seafood Feast (Crab, Shrimp, Mussels, & Vegetables in a Classic Beer Broth)
Price: $9.99
Source: Fry's Food & Drug Store (Kroger), Tucson, AZ
Rating (Seafood & Vegetables): OK
Rating (Broth): Good

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Box of Frozen Trader Joe's Pear Tarte
Trader Joe's Pear Tarte Packaging
Trader Joe's Pear Tarte Cooked in Oven
Sliced Pear Tarte from Trader Joe's
Slice of Baked Trader Joe's Pear Tarte

We've seen and passed by Trader Joe's Pear Tartes several times, but last time, we finally decided to try one. I don't think I've ever had any type of fruit tart before since I don't really like fruity desserts.

We followed the conventional oven instructions on the box and heated the pear tart for 20 minutes in the oven and let it cool for another 30 minutes, although it's nice that it has microwave instructions, also.

The pear tart looked delicious, and the pears and custard were covered in a nice glaze. It had a nice, crunchy crust that was more dense than flaky, but I enjoyed it. The custard wasn't overly sweet and tasted of cream. The pears were tart and sweet, and their texture was just right; they weren't too mushy or crunchy. The overall flavor was very balanced.

Although the pear tart tasted good, unfortunately, both my boyfriend and I ended up with big headaches after having a slice each. I often get headaches when I eat foods with a custard, but my boyfriend usually doesn't, so it was odd that we both ended up with headaches. Because of our bad headaches, we ended up just throwing the rest away. :(

Overall Rating:
Blegh
Food: Trader Joe's Pear Tarte
Source: Trader Joe's, Tucson, AZ
Rating (Taste): Good
Rating (Overall Experience): Blegh
from Trader Joes

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Bag of Purely Frozen Organic Broccoli from Costco
Bowl of Purely Frozen Organic Broccoli from Costco

We purchased a 4 lb bag of Purely Frozen Organic Broccoli Florets to try from Costco. The 4-pound bag came in four 1-pound bags. We cooked one of the bags of broccoli following the microwave instructions. The instructions stated to microwave on HIGH for 5-6 minutes, and we went with 5 minutes.

The taste of the broccoli was fine... just like regular broccoli. However, the texture of the broccoli was a little on the soft and mushy side, and there was a lot of excess moisture from being frozen. The next time we had some of this broccoli, we tried microwaving it for 4 minutes, and it was still a little frozen... so perhaps the perfect cook time in our microwave is about 4 1/2 minutes.

Overall Rating:
OK
Food: Purely Frozen Organic Broccoli Florets
Source: Costco, Tucson, AZ
Rating: OK

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